With the success of the programme in the United Kingdom, Animal Planet started broadcasting it on its national channels in Australia, Canada, and the US.

The 13-part series was again narrated by Nighy, and was shown by Channel 5[5][6] every weekday in the 6.30pm slot usually featuring quiz show Eggheads, with the last episode going out on Wednesday 15 December 2021.

[7] The Rise of the Dynasty series was made by Oxford Scientific Films (with the master rights belonging to BBC America) and featured three mobs of meerkats, with the groups being given the names Whiskers, Hakuna Matata and Ubuntu.

A television film, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins, documenting Flower's birth and rise to matriarch of the Whiskers, aired on Animal Planet on 25 May 2008.

A theatrical photo realistic-animated feature film based on the series is in development at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation as of April 2024.

[14] Eye-level shots were difficult to achieve at times, due to the meerkats' small size and the limited height of even the smallest tripods.

[19][20] Animal Planet US has also renamed some of Flower's pups born in series three after two other celebrity fans of the show, Elizabeth Taylor and Denis Leary.

[14] In the first series, a group called the Lazuli were shown frequently in competition with the Whiskers family, and the opening credits referred to them as the "neighbours from hell".

[25][26] Another group called the Commandos, led by a one-eyed male named Hannibal, introduced themselves by attacking the Lazuli burrow, killing a pup and badly wounding the babysitting adult.

Formed by a trio of Flower's daughters permanently evicted from the Whiskers, the small group was ravaged by illness, predators, and a lack of new pups.

Because many days are filled with behaviour related to grooming and foraging, these routines were often left out of the show in favour of more unusual events.

This has produced a variety of names, frequently drawn from volunteers' favourite books, movies, musical groups, family and friends, historical figures and geographical locations.

[33] Animal Planet sometimes renamed the meerkats for narration, arguing that researchers' names were too limited, often relating to spices and food condiments.

[14][21] Because of these changes, fans of the series who seek information on the Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project website sometimes have trouble locating particular animals.

The project has created a list of alterations to help viewers connect the animals on the show to their real-life counterparts, and to match episodes to the monthly KMP Life History reports.

[15][33] Meerkat Manor was nominated in 2005 for a Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Award in the Animal Behaviour category, and again in 2007 for Best Original Score.

The animals are humanized by being given individual names and personalities and by narrativizing the plots of their specific social relationships, blurring the line between nature documentary and reality television.

This format, considered experimental for its time, has been both praised and criticized for expanding the boundaries of both the nature documentary genre and the conventions of reality TV.

The crew is forbidden to intervene, and the producers don't sugarcoat the animals' less cuddly habits (infidelity, abandonment of young, occasional cannibalism).

But the meerkats are named and given human traits ("courageous," "caring," "bully[ing]"), and their antics and tragedies take place over a sound track.

[52] A paperback edition of the book was announced for release in the United States by Simon & Schuster through their Touchstone imprint on 15 April 2008.

[55] Originally announced as Flower: Queen of the Kalahari, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins was directed by Chris Barker and Mike Slee and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.

[56] The film documents Flower's early life as she grows from a young meerkat to become one of the most successful leaders of the Whiskers clan.